Amazing Race 13
Episode Ten:
Neskuchnyy Sad to VDNKh Park, Moscow, Russia
Previously on the Amazing Race…
Four teams left Almaty Kazakhstan…expensive shoes…Dallas and Starr…Moscow suburbs…no marching rhythm…carrying flour…cheating a cab driver…non-elimination leg…four teams still remain, who will be eliminated next…
Phil starts his mini-tour of Moscow by telling us it is the largest and most populated city in Europe, and the in the midst of this historic world capital is Neskuchnyy Sad, a park, which was the ninth pit stop in a race around the world.
If I was paranoid I might think that once I figured out the date of the race thanks to Nick's birthday then the producers decide to not give us the arrival or departure times of the teams. But I like a challenge so let’s just figure it out. It was daylight when the teams arrived and left the pit stop, but that is not too surprising because at that time of May, Moscow has about 16 hours of daylight each day. So we know that all the teams were at the pit stop prior to 9:25 PM.
We see that the teams get US$326 for this leg of the race, and the first three teams, Toni and Dallas, Ken and Tina, and Nick and Starr make it to the site of the first task prior to its 9:00 AM opening. The task is very simple, and these three teams have completed the task by the time that the Frat Boys arrive, so we can conclude that the first three teams were very close, and the total time separating the first and last teams was likely less than an hour.
Route Info: Proceed to Submarine
As the teams leave the pit stop, we find out that they have to make their way by taxi to the Tushino Park, where they must locate the sonar room in a Russian submarine to find an actor from the movie ‘The Hunt for Red October,’ who will give them their next clue.
Although it may seem a bit contrived to have a submarine in a city like Moscow, the fact is that Moscow is the city of the five seas. One of the canals that connects Moscow to the seas is 79.5 miles long and has a guaranteed depth of 13 feet.
This map shows the distance between the pit stop and the submarine (if you zoom in you actually can see where the submarine is docked). Google says the driving distance is 15.3 miles and would take 43 minutes. Given the traffic, then the first three teams left the pit stop at approximately 8:00 AM.
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Route Info: Park Iskusstv
The first three teams leave the sub together, and must now make their way to the Iskusstv Park—known to the locals as the ‘Graveyard of Fallen Monuments.’
The Route Info clue actually reads:
Travel by taxi to the
Graveyard of Fallen
Monuments. Once there,
search the grounds
around the park to find
your next clue.
This park is filled with symbols of various Russian regimes, such as huge iron CCCP (Союз Советских Социалистических Республик) monument and statues of former government officials such as a former head of the KGB, Felix Dzerzhinsky. This map shows the Submarine and the park with the statues, which Google says is 16.8 miles and takes 51 minutes.
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Roadblock: Who’s Good at Solving Mysteries
A roadblock is a task that only one team member can perform…
This is the first of two pretty complex tasks that Phil describes as requiring the team member performing the task to seriously rev-up their powers of observation.
First the team member has to identify and count the all the statues of Lenin ЛЕНИН (6) and Stalin СТаЛИН (2). They combine the two numbers to create a two-digit number (62—because Lenin is first on the clue the 6 becomes the first digit, and the 2 the second).
Once they have the number, they must travel to an antique book store and tell the number to the shop keeper, who will give them a book—The Master and Margarita. If they get the number wrong, they must wait ten minutes before they can try (guess) again.
Using the book, the team member has to look on page 62 to find a clue that takes them to the apartment of the book’s author, Mikhail Bulgakov. When they find the apartment, they will get their next clue.
We get a pretty good shot of most of the roadblock clue as Nick and Starr read it:
Scout the park!
Count the number of
Lenin
(ЛЕНИН) sculptures. Next count
the number of
Stalin (СТаЛИН)
sculptures. Then join the two
numbers together to make a
2-digit number...first mystery
solved!
Now go to the antique
bookstore at 36 Starry Arbat
Street and tell the shopkeeper
the number you came up with. If
you’re correct she will hand
you a book.
Second mystery! Use the book
and your two digit number to find
your next destination...
Later Nick reads the rest of the clue:
...the authors apartment.
and we see Nick’s copy of the book open to page 62 with ‘Sadovaya Street’ highlighted for viewers to see.
We also see that page 62 of the edition that the team member gets is the first page of chapter VI, The Evil Apartment, which we can find from other sources as No. 10, Bolshaya Sadovaya.
The non-participating team member is supposed to wait in a designated area, but it appears they were actually transported to the apartment building so that they would be ready to continue the race at the conclusion of the task.
This map shows the ground traveled to complete this task, it is approximately a mile from the park to the bookstore, and two miles from the bookstore to the apartment building.
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Nick performs the task smoothly and they complete it well ahead of the other teams. Dallas appears to confuse Stalin and Lenin, and probably could have kept guessing all day if Tina had not have helped him once she had the correct number. Still Tina takes one additional guess, Dallas at least three, and Frat Boys take two guesses.
It is as he is getting out of the cab at the apartment that Dallas left his bag with his passport and the team’s money in the cab. On the Bonnie Hunt show, Dallas said he made the mistake, but in his defense, he had taken the pack he left behind off so that the sound person travelling with them could change the battery in his wireless microphone. Although this explains how it happened, it doesn’t change the fact that this is an on-going occurrence for the teams on the race, I am sure that the crews actually interfere with the teams a lot, getting them to pose or redo something to ensure they have lots of footage to edit together to make the show visually interesting and build the suspense.
Route Info: Sokol’niky Park
Teams must make their way from the apartment to Sokol’niky Park, a favorite park of Russian children, where a person with a Shetland pony will give them their next clue. This just seems to be a reason to get the teams to the park to start the Detour, so I included the park in the last map.
Having lost their money, Toni and Dallas take the subway, after getting a some people to give them directions and money for the Metro. But because they used the subway instead of a cab to the park, the lady with the pony will not give them a clue until they go back and return to the park by cab. This is interesting, because it means there is likely some signal that the camera or sound man from the race use to tell the person with a clue whether or not they can give it to the team. This seems to contradict the rule for other mistakes discussed last week, and I think they should just have been given the clue, but then assessed a 30 minute penalty at the Pit Stop before they could check-in.
Speed Bump: Perform Russian Dance
It is in the park where the Frat Boys have to complete the speed bump, a task that only they have to perform because they were not eliminated when they came in last at the previous Pit Stop. In this speed bump, they must learn and perform a Russian Folk Dance to the satisfaction of the dance instructor, who will give them their detour clue.
After the marching fiasco, you would think completing this would be an impossibility, but the Frat Boys get a passing grade on their second attempt, which further convinces me that these speed bump tasks are designed such that after a given amount of time and effort, say half-an-hour, the teams are set on their way again.
Detour: Ride the Rails or Ride the Lines
A detour is a choice between two tasks…
In ‘Ride the Rails,’ teams will ride the Moscow subway. There is a good description of the system here, and as Phil points out, although this task is complicated by the use of Cyrillic names, the time between trains is short, so mistakes are easily corrected. To complete this detour, a team must first make their way on foot to the Sokol’niky Metro station (1), and take a train to the Ulitsa 1905 Station (2). Once there, they must find a particular snack shop where the clerk will hand them a Russian pastry called a Somsa. It seems that Somsa actually are more Central Asian than Russian, but in any event, the team will look on the pastry’s wrapper for their next subway stop--Kitay-Gorod.
At the Kitay-Gorod station (3), teams must locate a statue of the creators of the Cryllic alphabet, Saints Cyril and Methodius and give the pastry to a Babushka sitting near the statute. In exchange for the pastry, the team gets a postcard with the final destination, VDNKh park station (4). As Phil likes to say, it is here that they will search for their next clue.
Moscow Metro (Subway) Map
In ‘Ride the Lines,’ teams must make their way to a Trolley Bus stop near Sokol’niky Park. Trolley Buses, and Buses can share the same stops, the bus lines are marked in yellow, the trolley bus lines in white. (Note the designation for Trolley is probably ТБ, not T6.) So we know the teams are taking either the #14 or number #41 trolley. I could not find a trolley map.
They take either trolley to a stop named МЕТРО КРАСНОСЕЛЬСКАЯ, which makes me think that Toys Я Us may actually be Russian. Using the Metro map, there is a Metro station one stop below Sokol’niky park on the red line, which has the same Cyrillic name, or Krasnoselskaya. This makes sense because the buses would be slower than the Metro, and therefore, the distances likely shorter.
At Krasnoselskaya, the team must get off the trolley, and find a key maker on the street who will give them a key to open a storage locker at the Rizhskaya Train Station. I don’t know if the producers are playing with me or not, but they say the team will have to catch another trolley bus to the station, and accompanying this narration we see a #34 bus go by. Or maybe they just took random pictures of trolleys to have good visuals for the show.
Again, using the Metro map, we can find Rizhskaya Station on the number 6 or orange Metro line (on the Metro map), two stops below the VDNKh park. So again, this makes sense as the teams are likely going to end the detour at the same location.
At the train station, teams have to get off the trolley, find the lockers, and open the lockers to get the postcard which tells them to head to the final location, the VDNKh park. Here we see them on a number 7 trolley.
There is a bit of a trick here, the trolley buses use overhead electric wires, like the buses in Seattle (note the street name in the Seattle picture) or Edmonton. But there are also diesel buses, and a surface light-rail transit or tram. Teams must take the trolley buses. Tina and Ken in fact mess this up, but realize it in time to go back and catch the correct bus. And when they finally get to the park, they have a hard time spotting the clue box to get the clue that they need in order to check in.
Nick and Starr ride the rails, and don’t appear to have too much trouble completing the detour.
Route Info: VDNKh Park
Teams must now make their way into the VDNKh park and find Phil, as the park is the final pit stop on the Race. The last team to check in here may be eliminated.
Nick and Starr are once again team number one, and win a trip for two to the island of Anguilla at the Cuisinart Resort.
Showing that the Race is indeed Amazing, the Frat Boys are second. Tina and Ken are third.
Without any money, and without a passport, Toni and Dallas are still on the route when Phil tracks them down and tells them that they have been eliminated.
Toni and Dallas
I feel about Toni and Dallas the same way as I felt about the sisters and the hay bales in a previous race, I was sorry to see them go, as I really wanted to see them make it to the final leg. But this is how the Race goes, sometimes very bad luck really hits a team hard.
For what it is worth, on the Bonnie Hunt show Toni and Dallas said they both really enjoyed and valued the experience, Dallas and Starr have had some dates together since the end of the Race, and Toni really likes Starr too.
Heading into the Final Leg
There is little doubt that Nick and Starr are the team to beat, they have come in first more often (five times) than any other team. Ken and Tina have three first place finishes and four second places, making them really perennial runners-up. And of course, with second place being the best finish ever, the Frat Boys are the spoilers.
As we arrive at the last Pit Stop, it is by my calculation the end of the sixteenth day of the race, and if my guesstimates are correct, it is the early evening of Monday May 12th, so if you are superstitious, the final leg may start on the 13th although at least is not a Friday.
Also by my guesstimates, which suffer from over-rounding errors, Nick and Starr have travelled 38,429 miles, Ken and Tina have travelled 38,354, and the Frat Boys a mere 35,043.
And as we know, luck may play a greater part in the final leg than skill…